[slann]

Hi folks,

We are graduate students of System Dynamics (SD) at the University of Bergen (Norway). SD is a model based analysis and policy design method developed at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Me and my research partner are in the process of building a model dealing with the motor-vehicle inventory problem of GM in the US-market in the wake of the ongoing financial crisis. With inventory problem we mean the fact that the Days of Supply rates for certain models in GM's portfolio have grown significantly in the last couple of years. Through our research we want to understand why this has happened and what effects the financial crisis might have on this matter. We will perform computer-simulations of our model and hope to be able to recommend policy measures that would help solving GM's problem.

I approach this board for the following reason: In order to build our model properly we need real world data for sales, inventory (Days of Supply), etc. Some of this data is available on the GM webpage and other sources, but the most important one to us, Days of Supply, is not (at least free of charge).

My question: Does anyone possess the data for the last, say, 8 years seperated for the major models in the US market? I found some numbers for early 08 in this board: http://www.gminsidenews.com/forums/...y-figures-good-cts-bad-suvs-ugly-astra-63349/ The source that was mentioned was "Automotive News Data Center".
Does anyone has access to this service and could gather the information? We begged them to give us the specific data as we receive no funding for our project, but they didn't want to.
We are also constantly trying to get in contact with someone at GM in the US through mail that could help us out but we always run into some customer-relations goof not understanding what we really want and referring us to the GM homepage.

Thanks for your attention,

Catalina and Kobe

 

[K-1]

Good luck with that model-based approach. You aren't going to find anything we don't already know. The only thing that could help GM during the economic downturn is being able to do lay offs, derate line speeds, idle plants, etc., without having to pay the defunct workers. Transplants enjoy that luxury being outside the UAW, GM doesn't.

As such, GM keeps building vehicles just to keep the workers working, instead of paying them to sit on their asses or do charity work.

 

[slann]

I think the main problem is a fundamentally wrong model policy (of all 3 US producers). The only reason the exorbitant salaries of people in higher management positions are justified is for their anticipation of change in demand and preference-structure of future buyers, let's say, in 4-6 years.
But as every US producer is tremendously struggling this is a clear indication that they based their decisions more on short-term money-making (hey, everyone's buying SUVs, let's build more SUVs) and to a certain amount on ideology (US - land of the over-motorised cars).

I'm not saying I'll find THE best solution for GM's problem. But the effect of the credit crisis like lower demand caused by an expected recession, problems acquiring decent consumer-credits (see GMAC) AND a sinking oil-price are not well understood yet. What if you shut down all the light-truck plants and the oil-price comes down to 50$/barrel and STAYS there for a couple of years? If the economy bounces back quickly (the US-economy surprised me positively many times regarding this) you will be in a situation where demand for SUVs goes up like hell and you can't produce because you need time to build up the capacity now being destroyed.